You know how Snapple tastes like someone accidentally dropped a sack of sweetener into a barrel of water that used to have old fruit in it? And then also pissed in it? Well, here, in another composite article, our readers present some cool video game facts, which are more awesome [and more verified] than whatever you can find under a cap, and you don’t have to drink anything nasty if you don’t want to. Sound good? Enjoy then!

1. Sega Dreamcast – Epic Facts

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‘Tis the reason why Sega never made another console, so you might suspect that it sucked wrinkly sacks, but actually, it was quite epic. December 1999 issue of Popular Science Magazine called Sega Dreamcast one of “the year’s greatest achievements in science and technology,” right next to a goddamn rocket engine.

It was the first 128-bit console (that’s a very good number of bits, we’re guessing), as well as the first console to offer online gaming through a phone line. That’s in addition to introducing a bunch of cool crap we consider innovations today, like voice commands, motion controls, controller screens, and Internet browsing and email, among others.

If you’ve paid close attention to a cutscene in Sonic Unleashed (a fact you need to explain), you know that it’s also Eggman’s console of choice and that’s… something.

So why did it fail? Sega only asked $199 for it so costs, but also, it was one of the easiest consoles to pirate games on. A group called Echelon, mercilessly pirated the shit out of Dreamcast, until an actual Dreamcast game developer included instructions on better pirating right on a game disc.

…which looks like the screen they show when stating how much bacteria a soap kills…

…sold more than BioShock did on PC; and more than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind did on Xbox; and more than Red Dead: Redemption did on PS3, if Wiki got the numbers right. So there’s that.

3. Left 4 Dead (2008) – In The Woods

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There is a 2012 Joss Whedon (Firefly creator and The Avengers director) movie, called The Cabin in the Woods. It’s either a horror or a comedy flick about a group of young people, who… something something and all eventually die somehow, which brings us to a scene with glass elevators holding various admittedly cool monsters. Some of the monsters look very familiar:

I just got an idea for a new dating app

Those are, of course, Left 4 Dead’s ‘Special Infected’ and that’s, well, pretty cool. And apparently, Left 4 Dead was going to get Cabin in the Woods DLC, where you’d fight your way through the movie’s locations, like perhaps, a cabin and some woods.

4. Wii – Wee

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While we’re talking movies, have you seen the one about magicians, called The Incredible Burt Wonderstone? Yes, it sucked and there is no good reason for me to bring it up, other than to mentally prepare you for the very grim fact that follows. Also, there was a scene where Jim Carrey held his pee, and as you’d expect, that has some relevance here.

Don’t laugh. You’ll regret it in a moment.

In 2007, a Californian radio station held a contest titled “Hold Your Wee for a Wii”. It challenged contestants to keep drinking water and holding their pee, for a Nintendo Wii. Apparently, they underestimated the hype for the console because one woman freaking died trying to win. I’m dead serious here (no pun), and you know what else? She came second. How much fucking water did the first guy drink? Please, share if you know!

By the way, her family later sued the station and won $16 million. Not sure if they ever got a Wii.

5. Halo 2 (2004) – Nude Dudes

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I’m pretty much a Halo fan and I had no idea, but apparently, Halo 2 had some odd naked dudes in it, and I’m not talking about your Xbox friends list. One of the dudes is known as the ‘Half-Naked Guy’, or ‘Lonely Soul’, or even ‘Ugly Naked Guy‘, which must sting a bit for a Bungie co-founder, Jason Jones, as that’s actually him:

Another dude, or rather a dude’s ass, took a little more effort. Hidden in the game’s code is this:

“The error! The error!”

This discovery was a shitstorm for Microsoft, causing a delay of the game and a whole bunch of damage control. The good new is that if your copy of Halo 2 has a sticker next to the ESRB rating, you got the ass copy. Congrats!

6. Malice (2004) – Planned Big Xbox Exclusive

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While we’re talking Microsoft, let’s include this one. Do you enjoy a weird game development story? Even if it is about a very unremarkable game called Malice? Not that Malice, the other one? I doubt that you even remember the game (you’ll soon realize what I did there) as it was a rather mediocre platformer, but you might find this interesting:

Early on, someone thought it was a great idea to turn project Malice into a big Xbox launch title. That certain someone got Gwen Stefani, of all people, to voice the main character…

One and the same person.

… and her band, No Doubt, was to do music and some additional voice work, as well. Eventually, sense prevailed, and the game was cancelled. Then it was revived, redone, and released on PS2, erm… without No Doubt. Right after, its’ developer, the guys who had worked on Star Fox and Star Fox 2 (cancelled), Argonaut Games, closed their doors for good. The end. And now you possess what’s possibly the most pointless piece of video game knowledge.

7. Dead Space (2008) – Some Visceral Stuff

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Don’t you just love Visceral Games? Well, I do. Their Godfather games are pretty damn decent, Dante’s Inferno is awesome fun, and Dead Space is just what daddy like, particularly the first one. After just a bit of research, it’s becoming clear why that is. Them guys are just a little too committed to their craft:

See it?!

If I understood “menu screen” right, then what you are looking at up there is some footage of an actual decomposing goat. Apparently, the staff “bought” the thing and filmed it getting gross, to have some background for their menu screen, as opposed to picking a color ‘n shit. In the meanwhile, they apparently studied countless photos of car crash victims and “war scenes” to make sure things look as Dead Space-y as possible.

While some developers boast about creating a new alphabet for their games, Visceral apparently went fucking dark. And they also created a new alphabet for Dead Space.

8. The Simpsons Arcade Game (1991) – Truth About Marge

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You may or may not know that Marge Simpson is a freak. Literally. She has a disturbing deformity, if certain people are to be believed, like the show’s creators, for instance.

John Ortved’s The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History has this little tidbit from people behind the show, as quoted here: “…we were going to do an episode where Marge finally lets her hair down, and Matt’s idea was that once she let it down the audience finds out she has rabbit ears…” Like so:

I wonder in what other ways she is like a rabbit. Owh yeah.

Those are sprites from Konami’s 1991 Simpsons arcade game, titled… The Simpsons Arcade Game. Apparently, the whole ear story behind all this wasn’t even known at the time or for a long while after, so people thought Konami was just being weird with this. Well, now we know.

9. NASA – Gaming

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So, there’s been a bunch of big deal made about Pluto, the planet. NASA shot a camera at it and confirmed that it’s really freaking far, and they also got some pics. That apparently cost over $700 million to do. Well, BioWare achieved the exact same thing in Mass Effect a lot cheaper. Sure, it’s not exactly the same but if you’re wondering how close they got, here you go:

Holy shit! They drew a round reddish rock amazingly well!

We probably always knew that it was red and round, so it’s not as amazing, as it is just interesting. What is amazing is that the aforementioned multi-million dollar NASA space camera used a Playstation CPU to “fire thrusters, monitor sensors, and transmit data.” Shit. I would have given them a PS2 CPU for only $100 mil.

The weirdest factoid of them all: Berzerk is the first known game to be linked to a death of, not one, but two real people. Wiki: “Jeff Dailey made the Berzerk top-ten list after posting a high score of 16,660 points and suddenly died of a heart attack at age 19 a few seconds after the game was over… One year later in October 1982, Peter Burkowski made the Berzerk top-ten list twice in fifteen minutes, just a few seconds before dying of a heart attack at age 18.”

Fallout 4 is coming. Are you? If you’re still here, which I don’t blame you if you aren’t, I’d like to discuss the things Bethesda seems to be doing right this time round, as well as those unavoidable other things. At this point, we know very little, so we’ll limit ourselves to the three most probable changes, which have us excited and worried the most.

Note, that the best anyone can do at this point is an educated guess so some assumptions may be wrong. You know, don’t up and boycott the game because I mentioned somewhere that Dogmeat lacks testicle physics or something, as that might not be the case in the final product. Anyway, let’s start on a negative note so that we may end on a positive one.

THE VOICED PROTAGONIST

Fallout 4 will introduce the voiced protagonist and the most remarkable part about that is how some view itas a sign of technological progress. Let me just quickly go ahead and blow their minds here: it’s not. Some developers just want to tell stories that revolve around a specific character, and others don’t [or don’t have Nolan North‘s number]. If they can voice everyone else in their game, voicing the player character is more a question of immersion or atmosphere than the supposed lack of access to this insanely classified know-how.

This 1980’s game had voiced characters. That’s when games looked like that.

Bethesda voicing Fallout 4’s protagonist is not them getting with the times, it may actually be a very bad idea. Even assuming that it feels natural and the voice actor is not irritating and the constant commenting on shit is not annoying and is well written (yes, that’s a lot of ‘ands’), it’s giving your character his/her own personality, which may be very different from whatever you’d prefer. I mean, if you read comics, you’d probably had something else in mind for the ‘Batman voice’ than the way Christian Bale did it, and you probably like your way better. So why enforce this possibility:

“Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter!!!!”

Fallout 4 will have you play a character who talks his or her own way, not yours, but why? This is not the Witcher, which offers you your version of some other guy’s story. In Mass Effect, you are still your version of Commander Shepard, the great [though possibly massively dickish] hero fighting for the universe.

In a Fallout game, you are supposed to be your version of literally whoever the fuck you want. You get to create the character, name him, mold his appearance, set how smart and strong he is, make him a she, do good or fuck shit up worse than the nuclear apocalypse, and through it all, you hear the game refer to you as ‘you’…

“Boy, are you stupid. And dead.” – Actual (rare) death screen message from Fallout 2.

…and now, you’ll be hearing this ‘you’ talking in the same random person’s voice. I’m not sure what that’s trying to achieve. Remember that Bethesda, famous for their dedication to immersion, does want the character to remain you, in Fallout 4, going as far as recording thousands of names so that NPC’s can address youby name. It seems that they are attempting to make the game both immersive and cinematic, which will result in the smashing success of neither.

There is a number of other considerations, which make this choice far from ideal, Fallout has historically encouraged replay and different character builds. Will your character sound the same regardles of his stats? How will this system affect quest modding? Can this be simply turned off by playing in first person? And if yes, then nevermind, as it’s all good and we’re just talking shit.

THE VISUALS

I’ve heard people state that Fallout 4 looks ugly, plasticky, and even too colorful. Rest assured that we’ll touch upon that last point shortly but let’s address the first two… ahem, first.

People who think this game looks ugly, need to remember two things. One is that it’s an open-world anything-goes RPG. Two, they need to remember what ugly looks like:

If you think that hat is deformed, see the guy move. Or speak.

Fallout 4 might not be the best looking game this year – maybe not even last year or the year before it – but it’s quite a leap for the series, actually. People in Boston might not look any more ‘real’ than they did in DC, but they do look a hell of a lot more alive, with actual facial expressions that don’t always have that ‘I wonder if they can tell how stoned I am’ look of Fallout 3.

There is something everyone needs to understand about the new visuals. What they are really bothered by is the exaggerated, almost cartoony look, which isn’t due to the graphics being bad; it’s a conscious visual direction, which is very historically consistent with the art style of Fallout.

Just weird enough looking to make mutants and ghouls feel at home in their world.

This art style flows well with the unique tone of the world of Fallout, particularly its’ crazy elements and the whole futuristic retro design to the mech and tech. And I have to say that I absolutely fucking love how that design style is more pronounced now, in everything from the ‘cleaner’ cars, to the wedgie-tight vault suit, to the smoother Pip Boy itself, and especially to the proper bulky Power Armor. That thing no longer looks like a few sheets of metal someone’s cool dad welded together from the crap behind the garage, it looks like a piece of advanced and dangerous technology, as it damn well should.

It’s a bulky, heavy, walking tank. It’s a big deal killing machine. Good to have it back.

Fallout 4 looks like it’s bringing plenty of color as well, which might seem weird for a Fallout game. I realize that the series have always skimped on hues, for the sake of its’ bleak themes, but will you honestly miss the green tint? Why would you? I’m no physicist but I can tell you one thing with relative certainty: radiation is not green and it does not make things look green.

Don’t you panic, Fallout 4 does seem to feature devastated areas that are devoid of color, with dust and ash making things look like shit, but there is no reason the world shouldn’t have red and the sky shouldn’t be blue in all other places. Color will go a long way in offering variety to all the cool futuristic 50’s goodies we encounter and all the different places we visit.

THE EPIC STORY

From the looks of things, Bethesda is set on delivering an emotional, epic tale of a talking ‘you’ and your immortal dog (gee, I wonder if it will end up being important to the plot), which I admit, sounds like the most wonderful thing imaginable. Hell, I’ve always said that they needed to step their game way up in the story department, at least, so that there are no nonsense endings, even after they are fixed by DLC.

Note the truly disturbing part: how he makes “do whatever they want” sound like a bad thing, as if to say “we’re not making that mistake this time.”

The worst thing Bethesda can do is have us choose between elaborate pre-set storylines, a la the Witcher, as opposed to letting us make entirely our own, as has been the case in Fallout. A thing about this series is that it’s not about a good story per se. Hell, more than one game has had the main plot revolve around a suitcase, which could rebuild civilization, if you “just add water and stir”.

More evidence that Pulp Fiction was a prequel to Fallout.

Call me crazy but I’d violently argue that Fallout is at its’ best when it offers compelling, well written content, which reacts to the player in interesting ways, if one bothers to seek it out. At least so far, the series has been about the intriguing uncertainty hiding behind every crater and the thrill of discovering the post apocalyptic weirdness.

I don’t think that this is the right setting for a stirring emotional story arc, definitely not one to warrant the epic score presented in the trailer. The games have usually given you a reason, any reason, to go out and explore a world full of interesting characters and situations you wanted to get involved with, while a shitstorm loomed in the background. Your story were your actions, your choices, and the interplay (no pun) between you and the reactive world. It was precisely about giving you the freedom to do whatever the fuck you wanted. I really hope that it remains so.

THE NO MORE SKILLS

Here’s one you need to approach with an open mind. I completely understand the fact that simplifying game systems by removing features is like whipping a bald eagle in the nuts with a burning American flag. It’s the worst thing ever. It’s dumbing down a game in order to appease the dumbass casual pre-teen shit-head, which is known to be shallow and disrespectful to the existing fanbase. We have that established. At least, the fact that it’s the common immediate reaction.

This is one of those rare cases when this reaction is wrong. It’s a crazy thing to say, considering that Bethesda is [probably] removing something so significant and complex looking…

Look at all those numbers.

… but I fully agree with their apparent decision to get rid of skills altogether [or redo them beyond recognition]. Now, look, I would prefer it if the new Fallout found a way to make better use of skills instead, but truth be told, the good ol’ Fallout skill screen stopped making sense the moment this became a real-time first person series.

Riddle me this, mr. old school gamer, what exactly does a number next to a ‘Small Guns’ skill mean in a first person shooter? Would a high number mean that the bullets would… what, go straighter? You are the one aiming, so what sense does a gun [in a good condition] disagreeing with your aim make? Will it wobble, despite the game asking you to rely on your own skills, just to insist that you suck, only to justify the skill in the game? Personally, I found that rather irritating in Fallout 3 and nothing but detrimental to the gameplay.

Fallout games have been the only ones where wielding this thing is confusing and sucky.

Do the bullets hurt more? How the hell do your skills with a weapon affect that? In the first few games, you could chuck it up to your little toon becoming more precise, but now? It should make no difference whether it’s me who shoots someone in a specific spot in their forehead or if it’s the world’s most skilled pistol handler. I don’t care how amazing the redneck is, he won’t make the poor bastard more dead by shooting in the same exact spot.

Even hacking is done by you, using your own brain and your own reflexes, so your character’s skills shouldn’t really affect how difficult a given hackable security system is. It should be easy or difficult depending on whether you’re hacking a nuclear missile or a calculator.

How do your skills make this system less complex than the previous one?

It’s really been just a question of whether you can attempt to hack into something [you have the level for it], or you can’t [your level is too low], and this can just as easily be accomplished with Perks, which is what Bethesda seems to be doing in Fallout 4.

Please, do remember, that I’m not claiming that whatever system Bethesda is planning for Fallout 4 is going to be perfect, but the existing Fallout skill system [although it has changed a lot] was originally created for a very very different type of game. Even in its’ altered state, it has not supplemented the gameplay or the overall game world for a very long while now. It’s time to move on.

THE DIALOGUE WHEEL

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the fuck the ‘dialogue wheel’ has become so popular. It’s another one of those odd things that’s suddenly the new norm for a modern video game, without a good reason for it. I can see why BioWare experimented with it for Mass Effect. They tried to create a cinematic spectacle at all costs, so they needed to make things seamless, without interrupting your attempts at sexing aliens.

At least, it’s straight to the point.

Overall though, this system creates more problems than it solves, especially in a game like Fallout, where we expect to get some shit done via conversations. There are two possible side effects to expect here and both of them are diarrhea bad. We will either struggle with our characters saying a lot of unintendedcrap [as is usually the case with this system] in situations where we’d really rather they didn’t, or the game will only allow us to set a general course for our responses, as opposed to dialogue being a real role playing tool. Think about it, this is a series where you could [SPOILER] verbally convince a final boss to lose the game and kill himself! How would you imagine something like that, with responses like these?

“War bad!”

Another thing to keep in mind is that we can’t have actual meaningful options for each conversation, so RPG’s have to disguise responses that yield the same results. And that’s fine, but with this ‘short answer’ wheel type of system, it becomes pointless.

In the responses above “Vault-Tec” and “Go on” (and maybe even “Good morning”) each will probably prompt the same exchange, but that’s while implying almost no difference in verbal style or attitude for the player whatsoever, whereas a full sentence response can convey a very different emotion or mood, still allowing us to roleplay, regardless of the actual effect it has.

The last two choices do the same thing to the game but not to the gamer.

This is possibly the most concerning of changes in Fallout 4, so far. Bethesda went after the cinematic feel to the interactions, sacrificing some of the most important features of the series. Again, if this is only the way things work in third-person, then I applaud them for offering options, and nevermind.

THE GAMEPLAY

Ever since Fallout turned into a real-time first person action RPG – a fact we should all come to deal with by now – the gameplay has been half-assed to say the least. Bethesda has always had some sort of an ill-advised company tradition of making shitty combat, but they really outdid themselves with Fallout 3. My personal experience involved a lot of awkwardly slow strafing to no beneficial effect, while pessimistically pointing a weapon in a general direction of a target, then making a toy-gun sound, and checking the bottom of the screen for enemy health bar to see if the bullet actually hit close to where I was aiming.

Or have VATS spell it out for you.

No more, apparently. The suckage has been acknowledged by their creative director, Todd Howard. He claims that Bethesda are embracing the fact that there is a first person shooter in there and the fact that it should be [above all else] an enjoyable activity in the game, without any ‘RPG’ compromises. I say, excellent move.

Now, look, Mr. old school gamer, I’d much rather they turn combat into X-Com, and I’m not the biggest fan of first person shooters anyway, but if you are going to go for a certain type of gameplay, make it the most enjoyable version you can. And if you can’t, consult a professional or even hire one… which is exactly what Bethesda did: they consulted id Software and hired some people from Bungie!

That gamepad better be ready to rumble…

The result is that people who got to see Fallout 4 at Gamescom 2015 claim that the combat already “… feels a lot more fluid, responsive, and quite simply fun than in previous two games. It also appeared to be fairly challenging…” We’re talking solid gunplay, terminal ballistics on character models, environmental factors like exploding barrels or what-not, and a brand new VATS.

VATS is no longer a blatant combat shortcut, being a cheap way to pause a fight and then pretty much end it. Fallout 4 simply slows time, instead of stopping it, making it a combat option, rather than a combat finisher. This means that you must plan a little more carefully [and quickly] when facing that rocket launcher wielding Supermutant, since he can still shoot back.

Now, this means death.

I haven’t even said anything about crafting. Bethesda lost their mind there. Not only can you now craft all sorts of weapons and trinkets, you can build entire fucking towns. If this game doesn’t grab you with its’ RPG elements and it’s place in the Fallout timeline and lore, you can be sure that you’ll find something to do. See for yourselves:

Some douche threw together this ‘click-bait’ piece just to get a free game, you must be thinking. That’s not entirely true. While I’m bound to piss a fanboy or two off, I’m actually merely presenting a summary of opinions and a result of some debate among our “staff writers” (other term for people who keep hanging around). That is one reason why the list is so goddamn random. Another reason, note, is that I am not ranking the most overrated games; this is a collection of the so [unjustifiably] called “underrated” titles we all really wanted to call out. Be warned though that my flame-shield is equipped, and hey, I am putting some extra effort to go as in-depth as possible, short of writing a full scale review, to explain the choices here.

PS.

This is our first composite list. If you’d like to participate in one, in the future, comment below. You’ll be asked to suggest an entry, explain it, and comment on others before the ‘Frankenstein’ article is put together.

5. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

I told you this was going to be random. I mean what does Amalur have to do with anything? It doesn’t have much of a cult following, and it actually sold1.22 million copies in 90 days, which is pretty freaking impressive, considering that it’s not an Apple product or crack.

What’s more impressive though is that it still managed to bomb so hard that the muffin-lovin’ FBI decided to try and figure out just what in the fuck. And as it goes in the world of gaming, if a title has a few fun elements, is a new franchise, and doesn’t do well financially, it’s a goddamn masterpiece by default. Consequently, some have called Amalur (yes, we’ll just keep calling it ‘Amalur’) “one of gaming’s most underrated RPGs.” Well, hah! I’d argue quite the opposite, actually. While it’s probably not the most overrated RPG out there, I think we should knock the glorification down a notch.

This is how you hear Amalur described.

If you read early reviews for this game, you will see copious enthusiastic mentions of the fact that it was meant to be an MMO, like it’s a positive thing. It’s not. It’s a terrible thing. It’s like playing up the fact that the two-door speedster you are considering was originally supposed to be a goddamn bus. It’s basically a promise of an endless series of repetitive fetch quests for mission-post NPC’s, only you get the pleasure of doing the senseless grind by your lonesome.

Before your fun parts start tingling because this sounds pleasantly familiar, note that I am telling you all this as a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls. Amalur is similar in that it is also technically an open world game with lots of buff dudes, but the experience is not nearly as engaging or immersive as the one offered by, say, Oblivion (probably the most criticized of Elder Scrolls games).

This is Amalur.

Again, it’s not garbage. It’s not even bad but that’s about that, really. Amalur doesn’t bring anything new or particularly exceptional to the RPG scene. The world, for instance is about as believable as Caitlyn Jenner’s titties. It’s properly huge but immediately feels completely artificial, basically consisting of obvious game levels, connected through narrow transition passages, and filled with meaningless wacky killer toons. The quest-givers of various shapes are also so unremarkable, they could as easily be floating sticky notes for you to insert into your journal.

Amalur doesn’t feel like a real, living place, nor does it reward exploration in any meaningful way, like an occasional mysterious hideout of a band of angry angry wizards, with some justification to their existence. It’s a single player grindfest through and through.

Don’t be excited by that wheel. The dialogue is written like an instructions manual for the drivel machine.

Here’s my biggest gripe with the game though: how utterly generic all of the above is. 38 Studios had legit fantasy nerd muscle, like R. A. Salvatore of Forgotten Realms and Icewind Dale, and Todd McFarlane of Spawn, and even some notable people from the Elder Scrolls games, yet, we got something as original and captivating as an average Jason Statham flick.

This is literally his every character in his every scene, from his every movie.

It might seem like they are trying to do their own thing when the game starts throwing one random-ass term after another (each one hated by the game’s author himself), but that’s only to delay revealing the fact that it copies every other standard fantasy world in every sword magic and bikini-armor game before it. You still get the elves, the dwarves, the trolls, the evil red what-have-yous, and they are still what you would expect in an MMO with OK graphics.

Yet again, I’d like to repeat the fact that this isn’t a piece of shit, per se. A lack of originality isn’t a deadly sin, and the flawed elements don’t downright suck ass (though some do suck balls). I’m not saying that no one should play this game, I’m just saying that it deserves to be played by exactly 1.22 million people.

P.S.

This might be entirely my taste but the music was memorably awful to boot. That’s something it has in common with…

4. Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Yes, the Witcher is actually quite a successful franchise, and chances are that you are playing it right now, but there seems to linger a sentiment that it gets less love than it deserves. You know what else? I can mostly live with that, and I genuinely love CD Projekt RED, as a developer. They have a fantasticattitudetoward their fans, CGI banging, and gaming in general, so I am glad that people buy their games. After playing the second Witcher though, I must say that I won’t be hyping myself up for another one anytime soon.

Before you accuse me of being young, let me start right there, with the praise this game gets for being mature and telling a story aimed at adults…

Summarized here.

Assassins of Kings does feature boobies, I’ll give it that, but that’s about the gist of the maturity. I think some people confuse that word for a contrived gloom-fest, which progresses through countless cut-scenes of painfully dull conversation. I’d say instead that this game is just devoid of any fun. Nearly every character is hopelessly morose, since you know, whoever wherever is whatever, which apparently really fucking matters for reasons the game doesn’t care to communicate properly, erroneously assuming that you already care about the shit you are hearing for the first time.

I give the writers credit for introducing the term “brazen farter” into my armory, but even during the intended humorous bits, which always seem like they must have been funnier in the original language, the game just takes itself so fucking seriously, it’s exhausting. Geralt himself is such a boring, mumbling creep, he could be in the ‘before’ half of one of those Abilify commercials.

The scene after the credits.

The absolute worst, and indisputably terrible quality of the story, which even the biggest fanboys can’t deny, is that it sharts at you with a million plot points that don’t go anywhere, and characters who pop in and out without warning or explanation, like an aggressive dong. You often have to re-play the campaign over, through an alternate plot path, to see why some NPC’s even exist. The game goes as far as making you play as some of these random strangers,with disastrously awkward results. For the very story driven and hard-structured game that the Witcher 2 tries to be, it just doesn’t work at all.

Edgy, adult stuff here.

After playing the Enhanced Edition of Assassins of Kings, which is supposed to be better than the regular version, I have also firmly concluded that combat in the Witcher series remains the very definition of ‘suck’ (can’t comment on the third game). Honestly, it starts you with a hand-to-hand skirmish that’s literally a 100% quick-time-event sequence. You are then introduced to stealth, which is so fucking broken, I am not even sure how to explain what the fuck that was, so just google it if you want.

Of course, the majority of your time is spent with some fancy-looking sword play that is infuriatingly retarded. Sword in hand, you can send Geralt foe to foe, a la the Arkham series, but you never know if he will actually attack his next target or start with some twirly wirly bullshit that will get him inexplicably hit several times and killed. That is unless he decides to delay or ignore your commands altogether because he may or may not be still considering whatever you wanted him to do a second or two ago. I promise you that I’m not exaggerating in the least here, and don’t even get me started on the combat-related mechanics like, say, why does Geralt have to enter the meditation mode to drink a freaking potion?

Shouldn’t this happen after a drink?

What sense does that make? Nearly every fight in the game starts without a warning, some immediately following a lengthy-ass cut-scene, so can Geralt see the future to know to buff himself with potions and just the right ones? Because I sure can’t. But even then, why make something so simple so tedious? Why not just drink the fucking potion whenever needed, like the rest of the sword-and-magic-wielding folk of the video game land?

While we are talking redundancy, let me just go ahead and ask why give Geralt two swords in the first place, from the gaming perspective? Yes, some might think that it looks cool but it serves no purpose for the game whatsoever. If you see a beast, take out one sword; if you see a human, take out the other one, which works exactly the same and even has similar stats. What a fucking blast. The only thing this system does is it allows instances where you make a mistake and fight with the weaker sword, or unsheath the wrong sword, then put it back in and pull out the correct one while you are getting chased by a horny drowner (you’ve all done this). Why is a silver sword less effective against humans anyway?

Would it really make a difference to this chap?

Honestly, I didn’t hate Witcher 2, but the more I write the more I realize how annoyed I am with it. Let’s see… The pacing is all fucked. Too many quests are completely unclear and will not clarify some important detail, or even mention where to find something (not asking for an arrow pointer here, just a hint of a general direction will do). The game might ask you to literally speak to “someone”, and by that “someone” imply a single NPC in a heavily populated town, with no hint or logic to help you figure out who it is you are supposed to talk to. Worse, it often points you to follow a map marker to interact with an NPC that’s not there. Why? What happened? Who the fuck knows.

PS.

And that ending…

3. Torchlight II

I love Torchlight. It’s like a pot brownie, I love what it does, I love how it does it, and I love the idea of it. I am also one of those older PC snobs, who gave their youth to Diablo and Diablo 2, and who resent what Blizzard did with Diablo 3. The hipster in me also tends to root for the underdog and I still can’t believe what Runic Games have achieved with the budget of a stick and some rocks.

If you don’t follow, what’ I’m telling you here is that I have every reason to be biased in favor of Torchlight, and also that none of what I’m about to write is me trying to shit on the franchise. What I’m prepared to battle here is the undeserved status of a ‘Diablo killer’, attributed to this series. As much as I continue to enjoy Torchlight II, I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that it is what Diablo 3 should have been, and that’s not due to its’ lack of pentagrams.

Buy this game before reading ahead.

Look, marking down a good game for not being a proper entry in another franchise is stupid and unfair and not what I’m doing. This is not so much about evaluating Torchlight II, as it is about rejecting its reputation, which I find relevant. Let’s face it, Torchlight would not exist without Diablo. To some, the whole point of the series is a store brand alternative to Diablo. It isn’t entirely unreasonable to look at it from this angle.

Just to be extra clear, I’ll wrap up this foreplay by clarifying that I don’t think Diablo 3 is better than Torchlight II either. Actually, I don’t know because I haven’t played Diablo 3. It’s a matter of principle mostly but I don’t find it all that appealing, (and if you know me and my addiction to Diablo, then your mind is blown). There is a long list of shitty reasons why I believe Blizzard steered the series in a very wrong-minded direction, which I won’t get into.

Not like they want me to play their game either.

Torchlight II is a fantastic sequel in its own right, and from what I gather, it seems to be better than Diablo 3 in a number of ways: it’s excellently balanced in terms of progression, leveling and loot; it has a much more detailed and flexible character skill map; it’s a lot less linear, with plenty of cool and unexpected encounters and side quests; it’s moddable and offline (which shouldn’t even be a bullet point about a single player game but Diablo 3 made it so). However, as an overall package, it’s not quite on the same level as the 15-year-old Diablo 2, and possibly not even the Diablo 3 we got.

As fun as clicking on a mouse really fast is (which Torchlight II absolutely nails), it doesn’t quite stand on its’ own as a complete experience. At the end of the day, there has to be a point to it. Diablo was never just about the endless grind. It introduced a very compelling dark lore and oozed atmosphere from every orifice. The first game could even be called a horror title, considering what horror titles were like at the time…

The mullet is the scary part.

Diablo 2 was lighter in tone but it gave significantly more attention to the plot, and retained that ominous feel, making the apocalypse feel important somehow. It had us play a vital part in a chapter of an ongoing saga, with heavy context and a truly dire conflict. This wasn’t you looking for a water chip; this was literal good versus literal evil, no-butthole-spared type of situation. This meant that every additional spawn of hell killed and every point of extra skill gained to make our hero stronger was thematically a very good thing. Those games carried some emotional immersion and it’s exactly what has always been sorely missing from Torchlight.

Something behind this door is responsible for a lot of stained underwear. There is significant value in that.

Torchlight never really tried to make you give a crap, by offering a solid atmosphere, or a cohesive story, or any real characters to care for. Even though Torchlight II darkened things up, with zombies and other cartoony grossness, there was no background to any of it. Grit and gloom is good but we don’t want it for the sake of grit and gloom. This is not about tone. I’d be entirely fine playing as Spongebob if the setting was well crafted and there was an engaging story I wanted to see a resolution to.

The main plot in Torchlight II is clearly an afterthought, and a very quick one at that. The creatures and the locations are very varied and pretty fucking cool actually but they don’t have any reason backing them, not even a cool character portrait or a decent bit of dialogue. You could similarly take one of the Lord of the Rings movies, for example, and cut the first half, leaving just the sword action. You would still get pretty good entertainment but it wouldn’t be a proper movie.

PS.

I must tell you. If Torchlight III was similar to the second game and it improved on the aforementioned stuff, I’d jack that shit into the back of my neck Matrix-style.

2. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Wiki says that various “major” gaming sites gave Eternal Darkness numerous fancy awards and called it things like ‘an amazing achievement’. It quotes reviews sweet-talking the thing like a creepy uncle, which basically make you feel like a douche for not being one of only half a million people who’ve bought this game. Multiple other sites call it a cult classic, and a cure for colon cancer, while the franchise has received some renewed attention recently for receiving not one, but two Kickstarter campaigns for a sequel, both of which have since failed.

Unfortunately, this didn’t progress past… inception…

Here’s the bottom line: I wouldn’t mind checking the sequel out myself, after watching the demo, but I didn’t actually back it (though one of us did) because I played the original. I suspect that the cult, which is supposedly following the original game, has not revisited it in a long, long while.

The very first thing I’d like to address, lest I forget, is the mention of some sort of great gameplay in all the praise. I have yet to meet a real life person who would make that real life mention. Really, if you can picture a Nintendo GameCube quality character model lifting its’ arm and then lowering it a little faster, you get what the majority of combat is like in Eternal Darkness, with some variation in speed and force depending on your weapon. You do get to use some ranged weapons but they don’t make things any better, considering the usual older-3rd-person-horror-game quality camera.

It’s not as sexy as this looks.

A big deal is often made about the fact that you get to play as different characters through different periods in history. While that’s true, it’s also not as sexy as it sounds. Yes, the characters you control look different but they play as the same guy with a different sucky weapon. Most importantly, I couldn’t tell you who the fuck they are. Most of them are about as fleshed out as the moaning zombies they fight. What their stories or motivations are is never really clear because some of them don’t even say a damn word. You just start a very random level, gain control of a random someone, and take them through an A-to-B corridor. It’s super awkward. All that stays clear throughout is that there is some evil somewhere somehow, and it wants to do some… evil shit, I guess?

It’s one of these two. I’m thinking it’s the one that looks like Kirby’s butthole.

When speaking to real life people about Eternal Darkness, they all give one single reason why it’s awesome. Well, they give two, but one of them is “good story” (because it’s ambiguous, you see), which they can never elaborate on with any decent plot detail.

The one you will hear most often is the so called ‘insanity meter’ system, or rather the insanity effects. Basically, the game gives your character an ever-draining insanity bar, and if you allow it to go down enough, the game throws some cool troll-y tricks at you, which break the fourth wall, like something out of Metal Gear Solid. You might see some bugs (both insect and glitch variety) on your TV screen, a TV volume bar might pop up, a message might inform you that the game is about to erase everything from your memory card…

Also this.

Undoubtedly, those are cool. I thought they were pretty funny and added a unique element to the game but they are not enough. At the end of the day, it’s all a clever gimmick, which made the game memorable for some, but it doesn’t do enough to improve the actual game, you know, the other 99% of the experience. If you don’t entirely suck, you are not supposed to even see these effects, as you are must keep the sanity meter up, which is not difficult to do. At a time when you can go to Youtube and watch a video showcasing a summary of all the insanity effects, I don’t see any good reason to play the game.

P.S.

If they do restart the funding for the sequel though, do check it out, because it does look like a cool budgettitle.

1. Psychonauts

I’m really stepping into some shit here by criticizing this game. Psychonauts has become a very popular title to claim rabid fandom to. It’s supposed to give you some sort of gaming cred among the nerds, I noticed, so you might even find the whole thing similar to how hipsters like to wear those Pink Floyd t-shirts, even if they haven’t heard a single fucking song, and then claim that it’s the best band ever, after the Black Eyed Peas.

Emotional baggage. Another one of those reasons it’s so hard to criticize this game.

First, let me say something about Tim Schafer. I don’t know enough about the guy to claim that he doesn’t pour babies’ tears into his cereal in the morning but he seems to have a great sense of humor, he always looks he is having fun, and well, he could probably write circles around anyone here. Most relevant of all, his games have always delivered some unique settings, complemented by fantastic writing and art direction, rivaled by little else outside of the more recent indy stuff. It’s a shame though that the gameplay has often sucked so much.

From Full Throttle to Grim Fandango to Psychonauts, there has always been something off about the way ‘Schafer games’ have actually played. Playing them is almost like trying to snack on a truly awesome sandwich while someone is farting in the direction of your face. I’d often find myself enduring the gameplay and trying to enjoy the creative gold hidden within, despite it. And Psychonauts does have that gold, kinda (I’ll explain the ‘kinda’). The concept is novel once again, the humor is fitting, while the art style is cute and quirky. Again though, I wish it was a movie so I could actually enjoy it.

Speaking of… someone show this to Netflix.

It’s not just about the harsh controls, which feel like you are using an early version of some emulator to handle input (not that I ever do that…ever). If judged by the things you end up doing most in the game, Psychonauts is a clunky mess despite feeling like it might mean well.

From the get-go, it’s difficult to make sense of its’ unfocused structure. The ”hub” quickly becomes an empty, uneventful place, and continues to serve very little purpose, other than wasting your time. The action levels might throw a few cute jokes your way, but ultimately, most of them feel tedious, repetitive, disjointed and clunky. Meat Circus is often mentioned as one of the worst and most frustrating video game levels ever made, and I can think of a few others in the same one game, like the Milkman Conspiracy or the very last level. Most of them offer so little in terms of a fun challenge that the developers had to throw in enough collectibles to rout the fuck out of the most compulsive hoarder.

This looks like work and it feels like work.

From camera to character movement, it all feels half-assed, and it all adds up to interfere with your enjoyment. Platforming feels like something from the early N64 era that’s not Super Mario 64, but the game also likes to change shit up unexpectedly with difficult gameplay sequences that are just as rough, and which require you to get good on the spot.

I have to say that, as is the case with most Schafer games, I’d be interested in a remaster of Psychonauts, but I’d be sure to check some reviews because I’m not so sure proper criticism has been voiced enough to ensure needed improvements. Hey, that’s actually pretty much the point here.

P.S.

Psychonauts does create a fun world and a few fun story concepts, but if I’m honest, it’s mostly good because it’s a video game. I can’t honestly say that I wouldn’t change the channel if it were a cartoon I caught on TV. This is very subjective, again, but I do want to mention this, as well as the fact that I cannot say the same about Grim Fandango or even Brutal Legend.

Note, fanboys, that we have featured an article titled ‘6 Evil Facts About Nintendo‘, which has already been read by thousands of people. It also just so happens that the author of this piece is not their biggest fan, but it’s time to give respect where respect is due. Let’s be honest with ourselves and reflect on the fact that Nintendo has done a ton of good for gaming. They are as important to this industry as McDonalds is to fast food, assuming that they thought of putting cheese in a burger. And also meat. Here’s why:

5. They Gave Us The Modern Console

… And I don’t mean all the bullshit “bells and whistles” associated with consoles these days, like paid multiplayer, mandatory updates, gross DLC practices, Quantic Dreams, etc. I’m talking about the basics: the proper square plastic box, where you can insert games and smaller square proper plastic boxes to control said games. Here’s why that’s a big deal:

This is Vectrex. It’s not a proper square plastic box.

Source: Wiki

While you might not care what shape that thing under your TV takes, as long as it has the holes you care about, you must appreciate the very intuitive controllers we all play with these days, regardless of your system of choice. That’s the part you really have to thank Nintendo for.

Take the D-pad. It might sound like a masculine hygiene product but it’s still an integral part of any self-respecting controller. There had been some takes on it before, on consoles like ‘Select A Game‘ and Intellivision, but Nintendo’s own Gunpei Yokoi created the very first ever “cross” D-pad, when designing a handheld Donkey Kong game:

Looking like a Chinese convenience store version of DS.

Source: Probably stolen from eBay

The Famicom introduced the design to home consoles and it stayed there ever since, with occasional dumbass variations. That in itself is pretty significant but that’s not all:

Yes, some of these were wireless. No, they didn’t work after your dog made them so.

Source: Probably stolen from some gaming site

That’s the controller for Super Nintendo and also the very first appearance of shoulder buttons on a gamepad! Sure, your Xbox and PS might have those pressure sensitive and made of sexy but that up there is the conception.

If you are wondering whether the next Nintendo console controller brought with it yet another innovation, then you are wondering correctly. It took a little time but Nintendo 64 introduced into gaming the very reason you have placed your controller on various random parts of your body (like your neck)… the Rumble Pak, or the very first vibrating plastic toy you keep out in the open.

It was love at first sight.

Source: Probably stolen from Nintendo

Not bad at all, wouldn’t you say? And as you know, Nintendo is also the reason your current console might have motion control functionality but we won’t celebrate that fact too much.

4. They Always Try New Things

You know why Nintendo invented all those great things? Because they have never been afraid of actually trying whatever crazy shit popped into their heads. This is easy to miss about Nintendo because they have always maintained a single consistent tone of happy fun, friendliness, cuteness, and hard drugs, despite any thematic trends embraced by Sony or Microsoft, for example.

“Pills, bitches!”

Source: The Matrix

But we all realize that Nintendo likes to experiment like no other gaming company out there, which is why we still give a crap about their gajilionth Mario title.Seriously, you name it and if they haven’t invented it, they have at least tried it:

– Virtual reality: check. Nintendo’s Virtual Boy sucked red monkey balls, but hey, they tried it and they really didn’t have to. This was when Super Nintendo was still kicking ass while their Research & Development 3 division (R&D3) was preparing to drop Nintendo 64.

Toshiba 360 Gaming Helmet here to remind you that it could have been a lot worse.

Source: Your nightmares

– Motion Controls: check. Nintendo brought motion controls to gaming, after repeated attempts to make it relevant. Everyone remembers the Power Glove, basically for its’ sex appeal, and the Light Gun for that annoying fucking dog. Few might also remember U-Force, which was the 80’s take on Kinect, and yes, it was every bit as terrible as it sounds. Everyone knows about Wii though, the most successful motion gaming console of all time.

It’s quite amazing how much is going on here, considering that U-Force didn’t even work.

Source: deepest pits of hell

– Various unusual ways to play: check. Nintendo did not invent fitness gaming but they sure did plenty to popularize it, first, with their Power Pad, and then with Wii Fit. They have embraced music gaming, with Guitar Hero and Rock Band and the like, but also way earlier than that with The Miracle Piano Teaching System:

I’d call it ‘The Heavenly Chord.’ Right?!

Source: Wiki

– Random shit: check. Here is more: dual screens on a console, 3D without glasses, controllers with screens, goddamn robots who could (but didn’t really) substitute for the second player, to achieve potential for the saddest image of a TV room imaginable. Also this:

It’s one of those things that aren’t meant to be borrowed.

Source: Adult shop near you

Goddamnit, a Nintendo title was the very first video game to have a [shitty] movie based on it, and a Nintendo gaming series was the first to have its’ own theme park.

It’s like they never said ‘no’ to a product idea. The most common phrase at Nintendo must be: “Let’s just Mario this shit up and put it out there.” And a lot of this stuff has either failed or brought with it some unwelcome bullshit into gaming for some of us (casual motion controller crap, for instance) but you must agree that without Nintendo’s craziness, this industry would have been a hell of a lot more boring.

3. They Have High Standards of Quality

You know what I do like about Apple? The iPhone might not have that Android feature where it turns into a buxom robot and makes you pancakes in the morning, but the fact is that I’ve never seen a single error pop up on its’ screen (not to say that it never fucks up). Their shit really does just work! Well, so do Nintendo games, which deserves no less recognition.

Because lots of shit can go wrong…

Source: the dark side of the Internet

In 1983, the video game industry experienced a crash, known as, well, ‘the video game crash of 1983’, or the Atari Shock. Part of the problem was lack of regulation and a massive unrestricted flood of third party games.

This might sound pretty damn awesome, until you really think about it and consider how much vile (and often counterfeit) rotten diarrhea got pumped into the common gaming library. You couldn’t tell a decent game from a turd wrapped into an awesome artwork. I mean, you remember those covers right?

Skyrim, bitches!

Source: deadly towers

Although the above turd was licensed by Nintendo, the chaos died down when they started locking the shit (pun intended) out of their system and enforcing some goddamn standards. Sure, not every game has been spectacular since (see image above and also google AVGN) and they’ve used this power for evil too, on occasion, but they have not relented in trying to stay loyal to their ideal levels of quality.

This is most obvious with modern games. These days, you might expect to have to download several gigs of patch on day-one for a Xbox or Playstation game, but you can usually count on any Nintendo game releasing so polished that you can pop it right in and play what the developers actually intended (crazy right?). Seriously, if you google “Nintendo game patch” right now, these are the image results you’ll get:

Try it.

Source: Some store probably

And this is not just about patches. Nintendo puts in the effort every time to deliver a quality game, and it does not rip content out to sell it as day-one DLC or introduc some ripoff Season Passes. I’m sure it’s happened, but at least, it’s not the norm, to be naturally expected from their games. As crazy as this sounds, it’s almost as if someone at Nintendo said “games should probably be as fun and frustration free as possible” (more on this later).

2. They Gave Us The Most Influential Games

Hardware is not the only way Nintendo has influenced the industry. Their games have not just been polished, they’ve been setting trends in the industry like whatever favorite rapper of yours claims to do (more on this later).

Again, not all of it resulted in something decent.

Source: Whoever managed to record this shit

From Donkey Kong to Metroid to Pokemon, there is an endless list of weird-ass words, which the gaming industry cannot be imagined without, but let’s review a couple of the biggest.

Super Mario Bros alone has set a standard for decades. It might not have been the first side-scroller (it wasn’t) but it was so bizarrely innovative and thought out that it still remains the blueprint for a fun platformer, today. How weird is it to just up and drop a game with a variety of enemies and types of levels, power ups, secrets inside floating bricks and pipes, level puzzles, and other really trippy shit, which strangely made sense to everyone, all out of nowhere?

One cannot overstate the impact of these now-franchises to console gaming. We still play modern takes on them each and every year but there are countless other cases where Nintendo shook up the gaming landscape and prompted rushed attempts at competition from the likes of Microsoft, Sony, Sega, and others. They have dropped and continue to drop games that often introduce or popularize entire genres, such as the various motion titles, educational crap, crossover brawlers, cart racers, and all those living room party games, just to name a few.

Again…

Now, look, we all prefer the mature games, where there is blood and boobs, and the hero is a tortured soul with a scarred six pack, but again, how boring would the industry be without an occasional monkey, named Donkey, beating the shit out of a pair of bongos?

1. They Aren’t Just Suits

Now, keep in mind that all the aforementioned titles came directly from Nintendo or under their close supervision, especially that of its’ upper management, who look like this:

Hide yo women

Source: Stolen from your wet dreams

Those people have the Marios and the Zeldas in their DNA, and they are the DNA of the company. Take a moment to appreciate this. Think of a few games you consider to be the pinnacle of gaming and imagine the developers managing a gaming platform. Yeah.

Thankfully, Nintendo realizes the value there, since they actually make Shigeru Miyamoto (the guy on the pic), drive to work instead of biking, for his safety, despite his evident badassery!

Now, let’s change the tone a little…

If you are reading this article around the time it got posted, then you probably know that Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, has recently passed away. The sheer outpouring of love and respect to the man is quite telling:

Iwata considered himself a gamer and had direct input into some of the most important games in Nintendo’s (read “gaming’s”) library, from Smash Bros to Kirby to Pokemon. While I’m not the biggest fan of the Wii, we all have to agree that under Iwata’s command, Nintendo continued to shake things up, never losing the playfulness we all came to expect from them.

People like Iwata are not merely suits; they are developers and gamers, who understand what matters to their fans. Because of this, even if they don’t earn you as a fan, they will rarely lose you. The gaming industry is as close to magic as life gets, and as long as Nintendo is around, with people like this at the helm, the magic won’t stop.

]]>http://www.alienlion.com/2015/07/5-big-reasons-to-love-nintendo/feed/16 Cases of Terrible Fashion in Gameshttp://www.alienlion.com/2015/03/6-cases-of-terrible-fashion-in-games/
http://www.alienlion.com/2015/03/6-cases-of-terrible-fashion-in-games/#respondMon, 30 Mar 2015 19:37:58 +0000http://www.alienlion.com/index/?p=3079In truth, our fashion sense is eternally dictated by the laundry situation, so you know, we’re no Vogue, but we do have eyes and there often comes a point in fashion when that makes all the difference:

“Kill me.”

Lucky for us, when it comes to video games, the same person who designs characters’ dresses also designs the same game’s chainsaw bloodhammers, so we might be qualified to talk some shit here. That’s not to say that some examples of video game fashion aren’t completely legit, but we’ll just take a look at the ones from recent(-ish) memory that have even us (!) scratching our heads. It’s more fun that way.

6. Deus Ex

You’ve already recognized Deus Ex up there, of course, so let’s just pick that up. And before we do anything else, we are morally obligated to acknowledge what a bad decision (fashion and otherwise) it is to have sunglasses implanted into your face. Seriously, if that is ever an option, don’t do that. For one, just remember what people thought looked cool back in the 80’s and what they think of that now.

“I imagined the future very differently.”

And why even? From what I understand, those futuristic face-shades don’t serve any practical purpose, since Adam’s (that guy up there) eyeballs already do all the Google Glass shit. So are there really situations where reaching into your pocket and putting your shades on is just not sudden enough? Is doing that so much of a chore that you’d sacrifice having two extra goddamn eyebrows on your face? In that case, may I offer a less drastic measure?

20th century win.

And why the fuck would you don shades at night, in combination with a long black coat in the first place? It’s probably not a good idea to dress like you are up to something when you are indeed up to something, but whatever, maybe looking like a flasher is a job requirement for a security manager of the future.

If you pay attention, these nonsensical outfit accessories have actually become a thing for Deus Ex lately. Like, look a this guy.

If you can wear this, you probably don’t need it.

Someone got really carried away with triangles there, but also, just what the fuck could be the point of that heavy ass metallic CD rack across the guy’s chest? No, really. I’d like for either the game or logic to provide some explanation for things like that, when someone opts to include them.

There has to be a story there.

5. The Witcher

Ready?

I’m not saying that the developers did a bad job here. The world of the Witcher is meant to be grim, nasty and foul, and what’s more all of those things than dudes in tights and short shorts? Like any powerful thing, those two can either be used for good or for evil, and CD Project RED took no prisoners here.

Now you know why dwarves are so depressed in Flotsam.

But the headgear situation (let’s call it that) isn’t much better. There just isn’t a single example of a decent head piece in the entire game and the most confusing element of the Witcher games is how everyone wears them like there isn’t a damn weird thing going on.

They’re like “wtf is that on his head.”

Even Geralt himself dons a fucking nightcap… a fucking nightcap… and carries on acting like a badass. Though he might just feel comfortable next to this guy.

Eyes down here, buddy.

Seriously. What is that? It looks like the guy started taking off a shirt, got his head stuck in the neck hole and just said “fuck it.” Come on, under no circumstances is that thing a hat. I can’t be the only one thinking this!

4. Stylized Japanese Characters

If this list included every game that does this separately, it would never end, so even though I will mostly use Final Fantasy as an example, this entry is more about this specific style itself.

It’s not necessarily anime, or rather it doesn’t have to be. Picture a being of debatable gender who looks like it covered itself in Krazy Glue and cartwheeled through Spencer’s Gifts. That’s almost it.

The same person designs fishing lures.

And you know what? I don’t actually have a problem with it. Personally, I can’t relate to something which looks like a damn key chain, but it’s a Japanese thing and I can respect that. Having a colorful, crazy looking character can potentially help set a more fantastical tone to a game’s setting, even.

Things get a special sort of disastrous though, when someone decides to get a little too creative with that style…

Why, dude? Why?

Yes that is supposedly a dude and the very reason why your mamma told you not to sit too close to TV. It’s Kuja, from Final Fantasy IX, and this is Vaan from XII:

And they seem to have a lot in common.

When an artist starts trying to infuse that style with something else, be it some sort of “sexy” weirdness (see above), or some Western flair, or a touch of “realism”, the results are rarely pleasant, as evidenced yet again by the latest Final Fantasy screen here:

They’re coming for your heart, girl.

Plenty has been said about this group already. I understand that they are supposed to be mafia and that they are wearing black because it’s the color of Lucis (some boy band or something), but the fact remains that this more subtle realistic tone (on top of regular FF style) pulls these fancy dudes out of an otherworldly fantasy. They look like a bunch of dudes who could be standing/dancing outside your window right now, after having spent entirely too much time on their hair and overdoing it just enough with their outfits to look hilarious. Ironically, dialing down on the craziness made them more ridiculous, and not in a good way.

3. Alpha Protocol

I hate to criticize this game because I genuinely consider it highly underrated but flaws are flaws. Weird animations are a flaw, a broken stealth system is a flaw, and this is a flaw:

They’re totally walking in slow motion right now.

Let’s start with the guy on the left, to ease into this shit. Keep in mind now that he is the game’s evil rich guy, so you know, it’s not like he has to wear that mustard rainbow under his blazer, and well, just pay attention to that shit for a second… I’m not even trying to be picky here, unless that shirt is made of solid gold, is it not the most ridiculous choice of color possible?

One had to envision this before making the purchase.

Now, let’s look to the right, on the same image. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why there is what looks like random blotches of bubble wrap on the guy’s uniform. It’s so in-your-face, in fact, that there almost has to be a point to it but I could never find out what it was (let me know if you do).

Yes, that’s the game’s protagonist and he can change clothes but there aren’t too many better choices, I promise you. Oh, and if you just clicked on this link, you know we have to talk about this:

The main course.

Ever seen a badass Ronald Mcdonald? Now you have. Wow. Could they not match ANYTHING in his outfit? How do you fuck someone over with a clear death-sentence camo, designed after the bullseye, and then hand them a yellow gun to boot? I cannot remember the color of this guy’s shoes but I have to say that I’m tempted to find out.

2. Prince of Persia

The Prince of Persia series oozes style, though it has had a few missteps.

Ass. That is all.

Random, inexplicable ass. It’s possibly universal, especially when it comes to video games. And again, if I rounded up every occurrence of a metal thong in video games, I’d… probably have a pretty fun time doing that, but it would take an eternity. So let’s move on to a later game in the franchise.

You remember the one from 2008? It wasn’t the best Prince of Persia title but boy did it look gorgeous. I don’t know what the artists were on during development but I’d like it in form of eye drops. There was just one ugly side effect:

Douchebags, meet your prince.

Take a good long look. Notice the ‘ripped’ sleeves and that plunging v-neck, showcasing those glamour muscles, and that one-piece fusion of the two douchiest accessories known to man, all in one: a summer scarf and a bandanna.

And no, that is not a turban. Even when tied in a similar way, a turban does not look like the person rode a horse through a laundry line. It also isn’t for pulling your hair back, speaking of which…

If you squint, it looks like someone wiped their ass with an image of some guy in a desert. Just found it interesting.

Yeah, that’s either spikes or dreads and I don’t know what’s worse, considering the context there. I imagine that the omission of tribal tattoos and elaborate facial hair was a last minute decision and a heated debate at Ubisoft.

Try to tell me that guy wouldn’t fit right in with this bunch:

Brrrr. Just imagine knowing these people.

It’s quite puzzling, considering that the game’s supporting character, Elika, was pretty cool (visually and otherwise). Hell, even her father seemed more likable, even though he looked like a mix between some sort of a fabulous pirate rapper and Mr T.

How’s about we look back at the year 2014 in gaming? Everyone else is doing it. Now, I haven’t played every game to come out last year so I can’t tell you what truly the best game of the year was (what does that even mean with games, as different as they all are?) but I can look at the industry as a whole and gauge the waves which some games generated. Basically, here is a bunch of random “of the year” junk you might enjoy reading:

MOST WTF GAME OF THE YEAR

Remember when “the new Rambo game” was announced completely out of nowhere and everyone got really confused? Well, it got actually released, in 2014, and now I’m fucking discombobulated (real word). I don’t quite know where to even start explaining why that is. For one, who the fuck is this:

You know the graphics are bad when you can’t even tell if the game is using an actual licensed likeness or not.

Looking at that image, I wonder whether the devs got deeply inspired by the visual style of Robot Chicken or they simply took a recent photo of the currently deformed Sylvester Stallone and de-aged him using some free phone app (in which case they actually did a remarkable job). Before you ask, it’s not a smartphone game; that’s what Rambo looks like on PS3, XBox 360 and PC. And before you immediately also ask, this title is not as cheap as you’d think, not for the buyer anyway:

Can you put a price on a hearty laugh though?

If you read that carefully, you noticed that, on top of everything, it’s a rail shooter. Whatever other type of action you might see in any gameplay videois basically a cutscene, with quick-time button prompts, and don’t let the fact that it all also looks like shit fool you. What’s more though is that this is a rail shooter that does not use Kinect or PS Move or a Wii-anything because that would make too much sense. Seriously, this game could not be more bizarre if it asked you to buy a console add-on to insert it on a cartridge. Thankfully, this developer just got the rights to make Terminators: The Video Game next, so we’ll probably get more perspective on this when we [most likely] revisit their work in one year.

MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE OF THE YEAR

Not only was Shadow of Mordor completely off my radar, before release, it had just about everything going against it. For one, the Middle-Earth, or its’ equivalent setting, has become as fresh a video game element as killing shit. On top of that, it was yet another game to rip off the Arkham series combat, and it looked like a re-skinned Assassin’s Creed, which just isn’t classy. Additionally, the much lauded Nemesis system was first conceived in the kickstarter project, Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore. Oh, and the main protagonist was the millionth goddamn video game amnesiac to boot.

The fuck?

How did something that’s so generic on paper, turn out so fucking awesome and… dare I say it… fresh? Yes, this game has issues and I still wish it was set in a more original and fleshed out world (don’t freak out, Tolkien fanboys, I mean more fleshed out in this game) but when it comes to gameplay, it’s truly hard to criticize. I respect a game that offers enough freedom to let you play the way you want but makes sure that each play style is legitimately enjoyable. Whether you like it face-to-face or sneakily-yet-as-brutally-from-behind, you’ll enjoy doing it in the Shadows of Mordor (stop giggling, pervert) and thanks to the Nemesis system, it all comes together very meaningfully to alleviate the eventual mindless tedium of most action games. No words can describe the satisfaction of kicking the living shit out of an ugly asshole responsible for your death, as he seems to realize how horribly he fucked up by encountering you again. It’s hard to describe how big of a step this is for action games in general. The Shadow of Mordor is just fun to play and keep playing, and it has no right to be. Trust me and trust the hype on this one, if you haven’t yet.

MOST UNPLEASANT SURPRISE OF THE YEAR

Destiny is the true example of the power that some developers wield in the industry. All year long, we’ve been hearing all about Destiny this and Destiny that, and about a patch released for Destiny, and about an exploit that’s discovered in Destiny, and how the exploit is removed from Destiny, and how you can still kind of do the exploit in Destiny, and all sorts of other bullshit non-news with no reason to be put into sentences. I truly cannot recall another release, with similarly poor critical reception, get this much news coverage.

I admit that the game has great production values and the gameplay is so velvety smooth that I wish it were socially acceptable to drape myself in it somehow. Because of those two things, it isn’t a terrible game, but I have to say that I’d expected a hell of a lot more than those two things, given the potential. This was to be the only MMO I would pick up on day one and actually stick with. I mean, a brand new original sci fi epic from the makers of Halo, with Diablo-style loot? Bungie’s 10-year-long shared FPS ongoing mumbo-jumbo? Fuck yes.

Plus, I had to know what the fuck.

After finally playing it, I wish Bungie had made a “normal” game instead. Now, you may genuinely enjoy Destiny and I see it get props for doing something new here and there, but could you honestly not envision it as a much better game in the classic single player format of, say, Halo? In that form, I highly doubt that it could have gotten away with the painfully repetitive mission structure we currently have. There would likely be a half-coherent story of some sort, as well. Maybe Bungie could have even found enough time to create awesome set pieces and boss battles, a more balanced competitive component, a more reactive game world. Maybe they could make the different celestial bodies feel different by adding unique gameplay quirks that make sense, like giving the Moon the Moon’s gravity, for example. If it were a ‘normal’ game with Halo-like coop campaign, would you honestly miss the crap you’d have to trade off for it, like the Tower or having to go into orbit and come back down to the same spawn location to retread the level between missions? Yeah, I’ve heard all about the added post game content and the loot improvements but you can’t deny that the Destiny we got is a bunch of bare bones, with a promise to sell us the rest later.

MOST OVERBLOWN BULLSHIT OF THE YEAR

A non-issue, which should have involved no one but the small group of people, who were directly responsible, if they like. Unfortunately, a few attention whores saw an opportunity there and you know the rest. If you don’t know the rest then keep it that way as you are avoiding wasting a moment of your time, which you could use for something a lot more useful like farting at your hand while snapping your fingers, for instance. Moving on.

MOST UNDERBLOWN BULLSHIT OF THE YEAR

Did you even know? The whole Prey 2 development limbo thing was plenty mysterious. The game just kind of started taking awhile at one point, thensome odd rumors began popping up and then everyone just sort of forgot it even existed. Well, in October of 2014, Bethesda finally acknowledged that the game had actually been canned, with their Pete Hines citing “quality standards” as the reason… That’s Bethesda stating that something isn’t up to their quality standards… That’s the maker of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls stating that something isn’t up to their quality standards…

This news has been met with surprising indifference, which may partly be due to the fact that it didn’t surprise anyone but it is a pretty major fucking thing, if you think about it.

First of all, the original Prey was an awesome game. Second, yes it was. Third, Human Head Studios, the makers of the first game, claimed to be making the exact game they really wanted to make all along. Fourth, what they showed looked absolutely sexy. Finally, this cancellation came after some pretty disturbing rumors/speculation on what really went on behind the scenes. While, I take all manner of leaked info with a grain of salt, this instance got a little more believable after an ex Human Head dev followed the cancellation announcement with this juicy tweet:

Keeping secrets should be illegal.

Bethesda is somewhat known for its’ douche-ypractices, and this time, it seems that it might have cost us all a potentially kick-ass game. How are we letting it all slide so easily?

MOST OK RATED BUT STILL KINDA UNDERRATED OF THE YEAR

A quick reminder that the douchebag Bethesda is not the developer Bethesda. The developer Bethesda is often a talented bunch of people who just make epic games. MachineGames is one of those talented bunches, and Wolfenstein: The New Order is pretty damn epic. The game is a relative success, selling over a million copies and getting decent overall review scores but I feel like it deserved a little more recognition. It’s not just a decent enough game, it’s a great game and the best possible manifestation of an old school shooter in 2014. What that means is that MachineGames saw the merits of things that a Wolfenstein game should offer, instead of trying to cram novelty into it, and gave us the best version of it all.

Take the setting. I’m as tired of Nazi shit as everyone else but this particular take on it is actually long overdue. This is probably the wrongest thing to say but those Nazi fuckers thought big and it would certainly be interesting to see some of their wild architectural and engineering ideas realized. MachineGames thought so too:

Another wrong thing I’d like to say is that I truly admire MachineGames’ balls. The New Order has absolutely no multiplayer, so that the single player campaign could get as much attention as possible. As a result, every feature is thought out and polished. Nearly every level offers gameplay and advancement flexibility: you can usually go stealthy or equip two shotguns and do wasted surgery. Modern additions, like the numerous weapon and character upgrades, provide an excellent sense of progression while never getting in the way of the classic FPS experience. They even wrapped all the action around a pretty damn solid story, which manages to be sentimental, moving even, while remaining appropriate in a world with goddamn cyber-dogs. It’s a fantastic package that doesn’t aim to be a swiss army knife of first person shooters, at the expense of anything, and did you notice how I said that you could dual-wield goddamn shotguns? Yep. Sniper rifles, too.

MOST WEIRD SUCKINESS OF THE YEAR

2014 had its’ own weird theme, where some notable franchises were given odd shitty outings that weren’t really sequels but rather ugly mutated outgrowths, which carried familiar names. The best one of them is The Elder Scrolls Online, and that one got about 5.7 out of 10 from users on Metacritic, and if I learned anything in college it’s that that’s an F. All they had to do to make it a massive success was to crudely repurpose Skyrim into a coop experience.

Basically.

That didn’t happen. Instead, Zenimax tried to make The Elder Scrolls and World of Warcraft at the same time, which is like trying to make a donkey fuck a chicken in hopes of that sexy biracial baby. Needless to say, it didn’t work out that way, and you realize it when the game starts turning your companions into floating arrows the moment you stop doing the exact same thing. Plenty has been said about this game’s terrible grouping system, and its’ linear progression and bland NPC’s, and it’s all due to this lack of clear intent. With many many many changes, this could have been quite a decent single player game, as it does have some hints of one.

The same cannot be said about Deus Ex: The Fall, which got 4.4 out of 10 from users for the IOS version. Now, consider the fact that popping pimples qualifies as a game in the IOS scene, and read that last sentence again. That very thing got ported to PC, in 2014, on-screen jump prompts and all. End of story. If you are a fan of the series, don’t be like me; don’t be fooled by the orange-y tint and think that this must be similar to Human Revolution. It’s not and it brings absolutely nothing of significance to the franchise, except perhaps for a pretty bally approach to turtlenecks.

For this mission, the circumcised penis look is a must.

Now, I feel bad for dumping The Elder Scrolls Online in with this shit because this is a whole different level of suck. While Deus Ex: The Fall has an excuse, being a half-assed port of a half-assed IOS game, Escape Dead Island just feels like one in everything from gameplay, to its’ structure, to the visuals on PC and seventh generation consoles.

It looks shitty because it’s supposed to look like a comic book. It doesn’t.

Dead Island isn’t the best game series out there but it’s better than this empty, linear, clunky, ugly, cheap, dumb, glitchy (well, glitchier) piece of dogshit, and that’s the most accurate review you will ever read of this game.

Oh, Assassin’s Creed Unity is another game that could be on here, from the looks of it but I have not played it. I’ve long given up trying to catch up to this series and have yet to play all the numbered sequels before I start with shit titled ‘Unity’.

MOST NOT ACKNOWEDGED WIN OF THE YEAR

If you read through last year’s headlines, you’d think that Nintendo did not even have a console out. It was the year of Sony and Microsoft, comparing dicks and flicking buggers at each other, like nothing else is even relevant. Valve did DOTA 2, then took their Steam machines and disappeared into the same black hole that might also contain Half Life 3, while the most remarkable piece of Nintendo news is being made fun of by EA:

Cold.

Look, games these days are blockbuster events in every sense of the phrase, while Nintendo characters still can’t fucking speak. I get that but that does not make them irrelevant. I don’t care that they don’t descend into Area 51 for the latest technical effects or hire Daniel Day-Lewis to bring turtle shells to life; their games are fun and that’s ultimately what it’s all about. Whatever magic they used or did not use to achieve it, Mario Kart 8 was possibly the most fun game of 2014. Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze was possibly the best platformer of 2014, and Bayonetta 2 was possibly the best third party exclusive of 2014. Oh, and Hyrule Warriors is still a pretty damn fun little dumb game as well. Oh and Super Smash Bros came out for Wii U and 3DS, you might recall. Now, quickly, name this many really really good PS4/X1 games of 2014. I mean really good exclusive ones that you’d nominate for the game of the year without feeling like the ‘tank man‘ (look it up)… I rest my case.

MOST ACKNOWLEDGED WIN OF THE YEAR

In 2014, we discovered that a whole bunch of those Kickstarter developers, who’d asked us for all that money, didn’t suddenly go missing or file for bankruptcy or clarify that they only “wished” they could make all those games. If 2014 did anything of true significance, for me personally, is it gave me solid confidence and optimism for the future of these self-funded games.

Anyway, you might remember how about a year ago, Double Fine (the one who started it all), dropped a major scare bomb by claiming that they ran out of their Kickstarter money,but in 2014, they finally released… err.. half of the game. Sure, that doesn’t sound too encouraging but what they dropped was pretty damn well received, so at the very least, we know that Double Fine fully intended to live up to their promises not to spend the money on hookers and booze.

Said nothing about drugs though.

The same goes for just about everyone else, who has yet to release their full game, but do have some very real and tasty progress to let us play at this time: Grim Dawn, Pillars of Eternity, and Carmageddon: Reincarnation, just to name a three. Perhaps even more importantly, the full releases have been mostly living up to expectations, as is the case with Shadowrun Returns (and especially Dragonfall), Wasteland 2 and don’t even get me started on Divinity: Original Sin. Everything mentioned here has been highly anticipated and all of it has gotten pretty damn high marks across Metacritic and Steam. Great times.

I offered to review Wasteland 2 around release, back when it was still a useful thing to do, but I ran into a problem. How do you criticize something that you want so badly to succeed? It’s not every day that we get an independent, old school RPG, from those who made and for those who like Fallout, Fallout 2, Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment. Oh yeah, and the original Wasteland, too. This thing was flawless before it was even made, and saying otherwise was like stabbing a unicorn in the gooch. It takes about 100 hours of dealing with its’ shit to be truly ready, unless you can be as undaunted as this reviewer here:

Touche.

It’s no big secret that Fallout was a spiritual successor to the original Wasteland and I’d wager that a good bunch of Wasteland 2 backers got on board for that reason alone. Without wasting time diagramming why that is and what that means, here’s the point – no, we did not get that next evolutionary step from Fallout 2, which some of us were hoping for, and no, we did not get a ‘Black Isle’ Fallout either. A couple of months ago, I would have told you that Wasteland 2 is what Fallout Tactics should have been, but after spending some more time with it, I feel like it deserves more. Hear me now: this is a good RPG (and I don’t use either of those words loosely), it’s just tremendously uneven.

After a live action intro, which does an excellent job of letting you know that this is a budget title, things appear terrific, but not all of them stay that way. At first, you have to give the game credit for being so defiantly old school that it feels refreshing. When it comes to software in general, the overall philosophy has changed to become all about streamlining the experience, by predicting user input and transforming all the ‘extra’ clicks into a background process…

Sit back and enjoy the show.

…well, Wasteland 2 has you do the work. If you want to open a lock, you have to examine it for traps or alarms, wait, click on someone who can disarm it, select the skill, click on the lock, wait, try again if failed, wait, click on someone who can unlock it, select the skill, click on the lock, scratch your ass, wait… you get the idea. I can actually appreciate this approach, as it allows for some flexibility and makes you feel like you work for your loot, until you do this uneventful little chore a hundred times and it becomes much more tedious than stimulating.

The same is true for combat. It’s great, for awhile, being basically the classic turn-based Fallout combat, with the ability to crouch, ambush, and take cover, but then you notice how much of it there is in the game and how much of it plays out the same exact routine way. Honestly, in all of my 100 hours, I have only bothered with placement and cover a handful of times. First, you can’t just switch into combat mode to properly prepare for a battle, and second, you won’t feel like spending your points or your time on the very limited strategic options because it’s just not worth it, and again, there is a shit ton of unavoidable combat in this game.

Lord give you patience, if you don’t have an Outdoorsman in your midst as you will see this a LOT.

The character creation screen, too, looks deliciously in-depth, but then you play the game and discover the stat system’s weirdness. The Charisma attribute, for example, has no effect on your verbal skills. You can have Intelligence of 1, and just as easily be a dumbass walking crowbar as an expert computer scientist, repairman, and weaponsmith, all in one. Any character can throw a grenade or shoot a rocket launcher with the same perfect precision, dealing the same damage, regardless of their Demolitions skill level, which is only used to disarm traps, despite what you might read somewhere. Weird.

Now, I want to take an intermission here, to highlight the fact that none of these are serious issues. They are only flaws, which started to pop up as I played the game. When it comes to the actual role playing, the case was the exact opposite. I was worried only initially, especially when I got presented with my first major decision, in a very blunt a-or-b type fashion, in the vein of most modern RPG’s.

Pretty much.

I was ready to plea official disappointment right then and there, but thankfully, that was not representative of the game’s general approach to role playing. Without spoiling anything, I have to admit that the flexibility of some major quests in Wasteland 2 is truly impressive. You get to decide fates of entire towns, proper massive towns, and you do so organically, without resorting to any controlled ‘decision-time’ moments, a la The Wtcher. If you don’t know what I’m telling you here, this is good. It’s damn good! At the end of the day, it is one of the most important aspects of a game such as this and believe me when I tell you (unless you want spoilers) that this is the stuff we don’t usually see anymore. Wasteland 2 has legitimate, elaborate, detailed quest trees, with significantly different possibilities, and some of them are as elaborate as anything in Fallout or any other game out there.

You may get countless ways to resolve a situation, but then you may encounter a lock that can only be opened one way.

It doesn’t hurt that the writing stays solid throughout. It’s not particularly incredible, and the main quest does feel like it’s there just because the game needs one, but I will give the writers credit for making some absurd thematic elements natural, or at least fun. I don’t believe in spoiling story details but let me just say that you won’t struggle to relate to this particular brand of post apocalyptic circus. I will also mention that Wasteland 2 is very aware of the fact that it is a sequel to the original. The tone is very true to Wasteland and there is actually a surprising number of references to the first game, considering the fact that you probably have more hair on your sack (or what have you) than your scalp if you played it around the time of its’ release.

While the game’s dialogue benefits from that, unfortunately, very little of the aforementioned role playing goodness is achieved through it. To my utter disheartenment, this is one example where Wasteland 2 ignores the direction of it’s spiritual predecessors and just takes a step forward from the original game instead, by adopting the keyword based ‘encyclopedia style’ dialogue system of games like The Elder Scrolls. After some fan feedback, the devs did go in and add sentences for context but, well, you can tell. It still feels like patchwork, which doesn’t add enough soul to NPC interactions. And by the way, if you are wondering what on Earth was up with dialogue in the original Wasteland, if the image below is what it evolved into, let me just say that you don’t want that back.

Makes sense for a Wasteland sequel; not the best case scenario.

Now, sure, some RPG fans will disagree with me here but I must maintain that this system fails to communicate the mood of the game world and somehow, makes it feel remote. Combined with the dearth of voice overs or unique character art or detailed visuals, this means that the NPC’s are not as fleshed out as they could have been, and by extension, neither are the game’s locations.

I do want to clarify that, when it comes to the game’s locations, they each have their unique quirks, whether it’s the setting itself or the politics of the place. The atmosphere is often effectively assisted by a combination of subtle musical accents and some occasional pieces of effortlessly sharp descriptive writing, like: “on TV one man with a mullet is punching another man with a mullet.” It’s just difficult to get truly invested in the settings, when all the inhabitants remain emotionally inaccessible.

After meeting this particular fellow, you will be grieved by the fact that you cannot communicate properly with recruitable characters or help them with unique quests.

Speaking of locations, Wasteland 2 is freaking huge. There is more than a handful of proper towns in Arizona alone, which is about 65% of the game’s content. Some of the towns are enormous multi-area locations, with plenty of small hidden quests in addition to the main goals. The game could almost stand to lose a few for the sake of polishing the remainders and tightening up the main progression.

I’ll say this again: Wasteland 2 is very uneven. It may give us a complex role playing opportunity and then follow it up with a transparent and painfully plain fetch quest. The game world may be an open sand box in one sequence and then herd you into a very linear progression via radiation walls or unskippable tasks. The story may progress steadily throughout the first half of the game and then take a massive step back to act as an unnecessary padding. If feels like the devs had every intention of delivering what was promised but perhaps they ran out of time and resources to make it all perfect. The result is not a bad game by any means. For the role playing elements that it offers, I am very glad that I helped make it happen and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Next time though, I will hope for more because Wasteland 2 is not as good as any of those classics I mentioned at the beginning, and maybe it should have been.

It’s that time of the year again. Actually, it’s way past that time but there is a point to it. Read on for a slightly different E3 review from MaxImaz:

So, E3 2014 has come and gone and it was a weird one. Everyone, including Microsoft (!), actually did what they had promised they would – they focused on video games! One just has to ask, what the fuck was that all about? I realize that it all seems like a cause to be happy but it is a little worrying when the big boys of an industry suddenly become so uncharacteristically nice. All of the sudden, all these historically massive dongs are listening to us and laughing at our jokes, like we’re an ex girlfriend after an unforseen boob job. Microsoft’s Xbox One launch fiasco was one example of the jackassery that created this situation, and this type of jackassery is why this past E3 was so underwhelming despite all the great content that the show admittedly delivered.

Scars that last for a lifetime.

If you felt like something was missing from the show but you don’t quite know whom to punch in the nuts, I might have an answer for you. To put things simply, one key element has gone missing from E3, the show, and it doesn’t look like it’s coming back alive – trust. The powers that be are failing to realize that their audience has caught on to their bullshit. They are still getting our attention, sure, but their surprises carry very little weight anymore.

Consider the trailers that were shown this June. It used to be that we got all hot and bothered whenever we saw a great looking new trailer, like the amazing E3 2005 trailer for Motorstorm , and hyped ourselves into believing that it could be representative of the actual game. Someone like EA could easily put together the following bullshit and call it a ‘debut trailer’ for NFL 2006:

There was a time when, at the very least, we would debate whether or not the above was the actual game. That is rarely the case anymore. We have learned to expect more accurately by seeing the pre-rendered cinematics for what they are. I doubt that anyone thought that Platinum Games’ ‘Scalebound’ was in-engine and some suspect that even the expectedly amazing Uncharted 4 was not either, despite the developer’s assurances and despite the fact that it’s the freaking Uncharted.

Overall, the audience has gotten wiser and more skeptical, so that hopeful excitement of the olden days, as false as it was, is no longer an intriguing element of E3. We no longer allow ourselves to get blown away by bullshit, as the pre-rendered CGI trailers no longer have the same impact to the modern weathered gamer. As a matter of fact, they have become somewhat of a warning sign. Considering that game visuals have gotten ridiculously pretty, one has to wonder why someone would opt to impress us with anything but the actual graphics.

This promo image actually looks worse than the game. ‘Cause must keep it realistic.

Even when something is confirmed to be gameplay, we often wonder whether the final product will be severely downgraded or completely changed by release, if it does gets released at all (remember The Last Guardian? Dirty Harry? Eight Days?). Actually, I can think of very few games that ended up looking exactly as they did in their initial E3 trailers, especially if it is an early generation E3 (Watch Dogs is a recent example).

The point is that we have learned to see asterisks at the end of E3 trailers, by default. They have become meaningless because we now know that whatever is shown simply represents a promise, which has been broken more often than not. This deceptive practice is nothing new but it just does not have the same effect anymore. This is kinda of sad, too, because in our naivete, we used to think that anything was possible at E3. Now, even the probable is often unlikely.

]]>http://www.alienlion.com/2014/07/e3/feed/0Our Mortal Kombat X Trailer Impressions and Game Wish Listhttp://www.alienlion.com/2014/06/mortal-kombat-x-trailer-impressions-wish-list/
http://www.alienlion.com/2014/06/mortal-kombat-x-trailer-impressions-wish-list/#respondFri, 06 Jun 2014 02:41:19 +0000http://www.alienlion.com/?p=3016The debut trailer for Mortal Kombat X is here, and more details are probably to follow in just a matter of days, at this year’s E3. Sure, we could wait and offer our impressions after the fact, but we feel that it would be interesting to provide our expectations and wishes based on the initial reveal at this very point, and then see how much of it is satisfied. Possibly, this will serve to imply how we feel about the features that we see at E3, or maybe our minds will actually change.

By the way, my name is Mikee (not a typo, just weird) and I insist on writing the rest of this article in first person, as myself instead of the “we”. You see, even though I don’t particularly enjoy MK games anymore, I am still probably one of the biggest Mortal Kombat fans alive so this is personal.

Oh, my credentials? Well, I bought and played (to death) every single Mortal Kombat game ever released, and before you scoff at that statement, know that this includes Mortal Kombat Special Forces. I have also read every kind of written Mortal Kombat fiction, drew and wrote MK comics of my own, collected every piece of merchandise that had anything to do with MK, watched every episode of MK: Conquest and the animated series, bought the movies and their soundtracks, and actually paid money for the following:

Today, I may not be nearly as into MK as I used to be, but if a new MK game rolls around, it goes without saying that I buy it. It’s sort of like seeing an ex, whom you used to be very close with, join Facebook. You just are going to click on that page and check out those pictures, and the fact that I just made this analogy should leave you with no doubt that I am nerdy enough about MK to talk shit.

Having said all that (regrettably), for whatever it’s worth, I did not like the new trailer. It has the same awkwardness about it as did the trailer for 2011’s MK9. If you remember, that trailer showed us a CGI Shao Kahn put on his helmet and step out against a CGI Raiden, before we were treated to a compilation of ingame fighting. I could never understand what the point was of the CGI part, since they could simply have the ingame characters come out and fight just as well, without the sudden graphical transition. Here, take a look for yourselves and maybe you can explain it to me:

It’s like someone wanted to make a fully CGI trailer and then said “fuck it” when Raiden’s scream kept coming out all weird like that. There is not a hint at a story or any kind of grand setup for what’s going on, really, just beefcakes beating the shit out of each other. But at least, it had gameplay. Now, we have two dudes going at it for no apparent reason, in what I am certain is CGI (if it isn’t, now that will be a reveal!) and it’s not exactly clear what that’s all about. Again, I’d buy the game if the entire trailer was Scorpion and Sub-Zero smashing dongs to ‘Who Let The Dogs Out‘ but it could have been better than it is.

So, let me start with my wish list, and the details of what I gather from this trailer will become clear.

Cool Things Down A Bit

This is not some obscure Sub-Zero pun; this is something that’s been bothering me for awhile now. Somewhere around Mortal Kombat 3, the MK series injested excessive amounts of meth and the high has been fluctuating ever since. Don’t get me wrong, Mortal Kombat is certainly synonymous with craziness, wackiness and even camp but I feel like the balance has been distrurbed as of late. I can’t exactly tell, from the new trailer, whether things have been finally dialed down (gameplay would have helped, right?) but I really hope that characters like Mokap and fighting styles that incorporate farting are done with. Also, I could really do without the bouncing or the juggling during combat.

What is that anyway? Who thought that it should be possible to slam your opponents into concrete hard enough to make them bounce up into the air and then keep hitting them so they pop back up? Are fatalities even necessary after something like that? I don’t even mean logically, I mean they really lose their effect. It’s just not as shocking to see a decapitation of something that looks (more on this later) and behaves like a goddamn plastic dildo. I really wish they’d go for a slightly more grounded feel to combat this time around. More brutal, less silly is what I’d prefer to see on screen, is what I’m saying.

Rethink X-Ray Moves

X-Ray moves was a fantastic idea for MK9. It looked cool and painful as all hell, which made it a perfect fit for the series. I never even realized it but I wanted them to do something of the sort ever since I saw the following TV trailer for Tao Feng Fist of the Lotus, which by the way, was a game created by John Tobias, one of the fathers of Mortal Kombat. I don’t think I’m wrong to assume that it was an inspiration.

Anyway, from the MKX trailer, it looks like X-Rays are coming back. I really hope that Boon and co show a litle restraint there too. As cool as those things were, they got old real fast. There wasn’t enough variarion for the freqency with which the X-Ray moves usually happened in a fight. I wish that they were a little harder to execute or if they were only possible to do once in a fight. That would make them more of an event, and that way, they could have actual consequences that made sense. It would be great if seeing your characters’ leg break would cause him or her to limp, or if crushing an organ would cause health bleeding throughout the fight. Seeing someone simply brush off getting stabbed in the eyes requires just a little more suspension of disbelief than reasonable.

Art Style

I absolutely love, love the new art direction. It’s a little darker and more no nonsense than the recent “fabulous” MK designs have been. It may just be the color tone of the CGI movie but the costumes actually remind me somewhat of Vincent Proce’s awesome reimagining of MK characters (I’m not going to post any here so that you click on the link and check out his work). Though obviously, it’s still different, you have to admit that there is a hint of a common vibe, when you compare his Scorpion to the official one:

Click on the image for full res and info.

If I am honest, as the series progressed, I have really grown to dislike how every MK character started looking like a damn Christmas tree, with their glossy badges, elaborate leg shins and armguards, enormous belt buckles and shoulder pads. Seriously, why would someone like a deadly ninja asssassin need more shiny trinkets on his suit than Edward Scissorhands? Although the characters do not look very plain in the new trailer, they do have somewhat of a toned down, dark style, which is fantastic so far. Whether the new generation graphics are finally going to put an end to the plastic sex doll look that all the 3D MK characters have been suffering from remains to be seen.

Don’t Mess With Music

If you saw the trailer, this is the elephant in the room. The choice of music there is certainly controversial. Like many fans, I was caught completely off guard but it was just so unexpected that I decided to give the creators credit for the balls. Now, after having really thought about it, I decided that they should have left their balls alone. The choice is still brave and I’m sure that there is something to “get” about it, but well, I don’t get it and I don’t want to. The music is terrible and it’s not just because I don’t like the song. The grim electronic music has always been the staple of Mortal Kombat. It’s as much a part of it as “flawless victory” and has always given the series its’ identity:

While I am sure that Mortal Kombat X won’t have rap in it, the thought makes me so uneasy that I want to make sure that this gets mentioned.

]]>http://www.alienlion.com/2014/06/mortal-kombat-x-trailer-impressions-wish-list/feed/0Valve Deserves The Hatehttp://www.alienlion.com/2014/06/mk/
http://www.alienlion.com/2014/06/mk/#respondSun, 01 Jun 2014 02:36:03 +0000http://www.alienlion.com/?p=2500This is a quick one-off opinion piece by Mikee, who has contributed to the old Alien Lion Blog. Stand by for his standalone blog very soon.

It’s almost that time again and I’m not talking about the World Cup, but you didn’t even think I was, did you, nerd? Yes, E3 is just around the corner and we are all getting ready to be blown away, as if there was some unique excuse for the consistent disappointments over the past years. Reading through all the predictioins and rumors though, one can bet that this is the year when something truly amazing happens: a massive unexpected sequel, the next monster IP, a new console future that doesn’t suck balls, or something so goddamn cool that it’s plain unimaginable. The only thing that’s certain right now is that one topic is conspicuously absent from all the speculation. I would bet that it is in the back of everyone’s mind but nobody wants to be the asshole to bring it up yet again. As one would expect, that’s where I come in, and yes, it’s the “will they or will they not” of Valve’s Half Life 3.

If you look close, it’s rolling its’ eyes. Or face testicles.

If you head over to Steam forums right now, you will find a thread titled “Half-Life 3 — Where are you?” that’s almost 800 freakin’ pages long. In forum thread terms, that number is the infinity, but even more notably, the topic was started in 2008 and the last comment was posted today (regardless of what day it is). Some people in that thread are pissed enough to actually stand out on the Internet, while others accuse them of being self-entitled, whiny bitches. That’s pretty much how the gaming world feels about Half Life right now and I’d like to offer a perspective on this at, what I feel, is a very appropriate time.

Let us take a moment and really consider the following: since you were first able to play Half-Life 2, you have arrived in a whole new age bracket and are possibly closing in on that second one. Not pointing any fingers here but what has passed is 14.8% of an average person’s lifetime. America has since elected a black-ish president, and Christopher Nolan has completed a Batman trilogy (equally important) and introduced Dr. Zoidberg as a Batman villain.

What an honor!

In gaming terms, an entire video game console generation has come and gone, and massive video game franchises have been introduced and given numerous massive sequels. As a matter of fact, since any actual outing in the Half-Life series, Assassin’s Creed has come out and spawned 6 major sequels and a whole bunch of mobile fart particles that don’t matter. That’s just one example and here is another: BioShock was another game that was introduced at that time and that series has received two sequels and a whole new development studio, which has since managed to close.

Most importantly, in most countries, 7 years is enough time to delcare death in absentia, or legal presumption of death when someone goes missing. It just so happens that as of November 2014, it will have been exactly that long since Half Life 2: Episode 2…

A moment of silence is appropriate…

Imagine, for a second, being a huge fan of Half Life. Sure, life is unfair and great things do end, or inexplicably disappear before their time (see HBO’s Hello Ladies and also my hamster) but this particular case is different. First, this is a franchise that has decided to tell a decent ongoing story. When one played through the first Half Life game, they received an implied promise of a certain level of commitment to that aspect of the product. If the second game came with a complete lack of a story, or if it sucked complete ass, fans would have been right to be angry. That did not happen, but instead, the last Half Life entry ended on massive cliffhanger, which is actually much worse. Valve had promised a story of a quality that one could care for, only instead of succeeding or failing at finalizing it, they completely abandoned it.

Now, I am starting to sound self-entitled but all this would be understandable if the series were not very financially successful but Half Life is a massive franchise. It is a franchise that built Valve. This company owes at least some of its’ success to Half Life and its’ fanbase and they appear not to give a shit, instead talking about Steam Machines, Steam OS, and who the fuck knows what Steam else. Yes, we all love Steam and Valve and we all know that they lose sleep every night caring about the welfare of gamers (or not) but at this point in time, there is simply no excuse not to communicate any progress of Half Life 3. I can appreciate wanting to keep a project under wraps but not when you already drive most of your fans to completely lose hope and all but stop giving a shit about the franchise they had agreed to invest in, financially and emotionally. Sorry to say but as of this moment, this becomes a legitimately shit move by Valve.